


Measuring Time

by Velynven



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4597983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velynven/pseuds/Velynven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mass Effect trilogy epilogue.  Based on Destroy ending, Shepard survives.  Written from Kaidan's perspective, it details life after the war, largely covering his relationship with Shepard but also including select events as the galaxy rebuilds and moves on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Two Weeks.**

Desperate. Lonely.  Glad to be alive but without functional communications. Unable to contact anyone besides each other. Kaidan spent the weeks doing everything he could to keep spirits up and using the needed repairs to provide a distraction for the distraught and tired crew.

Everyone worried about…  _everyone_ .

**Ten minutes.**

To connect to Alliance comm lines with the repaired communications systems.

**Fifteen minutes.**

To be overcome with joy. To learn that the Crucible had fired. That the Reapers were dead.  That Shepard was still alive.  To tell the crew and to see them erupt in happiness.

Tonight, they wouldn’t walk about the ship as ghosts, speaking in whispers and perpetuating the aura of mourning that they had allowed to fall over them all. No, tonight they would celebrate and tomorrow their efforts would take on a renewed focus.

The road ahead would be long and difficult but they looked forward to the challenge now, instead of perceiving it as an insurmountable obstacle which no one had appeared to be in too big a hurry to overcome.

This crew had done the impossible more times than any of them could count and they’d damn well do it again.

**Five minutes.**

To talk to her. To hear her voice and feel his heart swell.  To shed the first tears of something other than sorrow in so long that he decided it wasn’t worth placing a measure on. 

**Three months.**

To finish the Normandy’s repairs and return to Earth.

**Twenty-four minutes.**

To descend to the planet’s surface.

**Ten minutes.**

To dock. 

**A few more minutes.**

To disembark.

**One of the most immeasurably long moments of his life.**

To push through the crush of people, of all races, in order to reach Shepard, who stood apart and unnoticed.  He with his heart in his throat.  With his body tense and wanting to sprint to her, just barely listening to the logical part of him that knew that he couldn’t bull rush through the crowd to get to her.

She’d been at a gala (the first of far too many to count), she would later tell him, and that was why she wore a full length gown of a shimmering dark blue fabric.  One of the two most beautiful dresses he’d ever see her in.  Accentuating every last part of her, even the shaggy hair that had begun to grow back after the burns had healed.  Her scars and her fragility finally worn proudly for all to see instead of hidden beneath so many layers of armor and uniform.

Upon reaching her, he swept her into his arms, her pounding heart an echo of his own.  Her vice-like grip a reminder of all that she was capable of.  For the first time since he’d met her, she was speechless but he hardly needed her words to know what she was saying. 

_I missed you so much.  I love you.  I’m never leaving you again.  I need you._

**One week.**

To finalize and announce the new galactic leadership.  Busy, frantic, and she was thriving in it.  He was content to simply sit by and focus his efforts on being her personal aide for that time.  Relieved, to have someone else giving the orders for a while.

It had been part of the gala she’d been at, and to no one’s surprise, she’d been instrumental in winning political (read: military and monetary support) for the new Council and Galactic Parliament. 

More than half of her current and former crew were standing at attention in their military uniforms as Wrex, Primarch Victus, Admiral Hackett, a Batarian leader named Ma’hesh An, and a Hanar named Kaylis announced the new structure and how the necessary roles would be filled. 

**That same week.**

Urdnot Bakara was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  The first alien ever to receive the honor and one of the first individuals to receive it at all after the end of the Reaper War.   Legion and Mordin Solus are among those granted the prize posthumously. 

They were all present for the ceremony.  The humans cried.  Gross, ugly sobbing that none of them were embarrassed to show.  The aliens would have wept for them had they been able, he knew.

**Another few days, he’s not sure how many there were.**

To decide that Spectres were still needed but that reform was necessary. Transparency.  A tighter structure.  The red tape Garrus was once so frustrated by.  What fun that had been, to see him advocating for it with his father leading the way and to tease him the entire time.

**Four days.**

As he, Shepard, and Garrus garnered support for the reformed Spectres while also running potential new members past the politicians who’d need to approve their additions. Miranda Lawson, Jack, Jacob, Garrus, basically anyone who had been on Shepard’s crew.  Each one more capable than the last.  An embarrassment of riches.

Including Grunt, who would one day be one of the best in the ranks and a symbol of all that the new Spectre Agency had become.

**Thirty seconds.**

To see, and laugh, as Garrus’ mandibles worked furiously at the air and he  _keened_ while he processed the notion.  Executor Vakarian, the new director of the Spectre Agency, was not the senior Vakarian as he’d been told, but instead he himself.  His father clapped him on the back, chuckled, and told him just how proud of him he was and how there was no better choice for the job. 

If Garrus had been human, he would have cried.  Shepard did it for him and has yet to live it down.

**Seven weeks.**

For her to continue healing.  For them to settle on homes. 

One home on Earth, in the heart of Michigan.  A farm with an orchard and more than enough room for three houses.  They moved his mother into one, the Shepards into the second, and took the third for themselves. 

One small flat in London, the new land-side capital of the galaxy.  In the heart of the new development in the downtown area, looking over the sad yet still beautiful ruins of the old city.

And one apartment on the Citadel.  Anderson’s. A gift they could not refuse.

Each home forever open to any friend or family member who should get the urge to stop by. Always a couch or a guest bedroom with their name on it.

**Those same seven weeks.**

For he, Shepard, their friends and family, to ease into the new world.

To help the Alliance regather and restructure itself.  To realize rather quickly that, try as they might, the races were already too used to fighting alongside each other to go back easily.  Mixed species units refused to be split up and the Systems Alliance became the Galactic Alliance, with each species still allowed to have their own military force and opt out of the GA entirely, should they choose it.

To begin producing dextro food.  Crops were modified using DNA samples from various labs on Earth.  The Salarian, Grech Bexus, who created the first dextro  _and_ levo friendly corn won more awards than Kaidan could ever hope to count.

To create and name a holiday commemorating the end of the Reaper War. The day would forever be known as “Victor Mortis”, victory over death.

**Those same seven weeks.**

For the crew towing the Charon Relay and all the wreckage they could find to the Citadel in order to test the theory that the Keepers could repair it.  Sure enough, once Keepers were physically relocated to the relay they set about fixing it. 

Innumerable crews carefully observed their work and relayed it on to other crews throughout the galaxy.  On the Wednesday of the sixth week, the first relay jump since the Victor Mortis was performed. 

Several Quarian liveships carrying desperately needed supplies for their people and the Turians made the jump and returned successfully. The other relays followed quickly.

**Those same seven weeks.**

For him to pick a ring. A style.  A date.

**Two more weeks.**

Until that date came. Nervous.  Chuckling warmly to himself each time he doubted that she would say yes.  Waving away her curiosity, often dismissing his bit of mirth with a warm, quick kiss to her smiling lips.

**Three and a half hours.**

Of partying.  Of laughing, and laughing so hard they cried. The humans, anyway.  Of old stories and bad jokes and worse dancing. Of delirious smiles and relentless teasing.  Of looking about at what they had, what they had because of  _her_ and for the first time since she had fired the Crucible, seeing everyone truly happy.  The lost not forgotten but no longer a failure for which they blamed themselves.

Life was good again and it was only going to get better. For all of them.

**A few uncounted minutes.**

He was nervous as Shepard gathered them for a group photo.  He fumbled with the box in his pocket.  It felt like a lead ball, an inescapable and frightful weight he couldn’t possibly manage.

She’d say yes.

_Of course she’ll say yes._

He laughed quietly to himself.

**Ten seconds.**

He was tense.  Garrus stood behind the couch and called Shepard’s name.  Shepard turned to look at him, her back turned on Kaidan. 

He took a knee and watched as Liara and Tali realized what he was about to do. Their gasps did not help him to quell his burgeoning nerves.

**More too-short seconds.**

The box was stuck in his pocket but Shepard’s back was still to him because Garrus, thank God, could see Kaidan’s situation and like the good teammate and friend he’d always been, stalled for him.

**A blink.**

It was free.  He opened the box, the diamond glittering in his shaking hand.

**He cannot measure this time.**

_It feels like hours.  It feels like seconds.  This is some of the most valuable time of his life but he cannot assign a numeric value to it.  Now he knows the true meaning of “priceless”._

He called her name.  Her real one. The one given to her by her parents, the beautiful creatures who created one of only three things which will ever be more valuable to him than time. 

It is not the name of the soldier the galaxy created.  Tore down.  Reviled. And now reveres. 

It is the name of a single woman who made them all heroes by gently pushing them here and dragging them kicking and screaming there. That woman’s name is Lisa and he’s going to spend the rest of his life with her.

When she turned to him, Lisa’s face was already lit with a blissful smile, a result of the evening’s gaiety, but it brightened even more as her eyes fell on the ring he proffered.  She gasped in delighted shock, her brow furrowed and the corners of her eyes crinkled as she did her best to deny her welling tears, her blue eyes instantly watery.

He and everyone else in the room knew Lisa.  They loved her.  He told her this.  He told her how her love was the best gift he’d ever been given.  How her confidence in him inspired him to reach new heights. Shushed her when she tried to argue that he’d have done it anyway.  Maybe even surpassed his current state.  And he reminded her that that’s also part of why he loves her. 

The peanut gallery laughed and jeered.  And they both laughed, too.

And then they were both crying.  Still he carried on, her strength continuing to inspire him even then.   _She'd_ be able to get through this.  At last he’d said all he needed to except for four simple words.

“Will you marry me?”

Lisa was speechless but as with their embrace upon the Normandy’s return to Earth, he still knew exactly what she was saying without words.

The yes was in the nod.   The brightness in her eyes.  It was in the widest smile he’d ever seen on Lisa and one that he was suddenly determined to put on her beautiful face as much as he could for the rest of their lives.  It was in the hand extended to accept his ring.

Kaidan was shaking. She was shaking.  It was surprisingly easy to slip the ring onto her finger even when it felt like the world was quaking all about them. Then she seized him, hands hard on his shoulders, as hard as she’d ever gripped him, and hauled him to his feet. 

He’s not sure, even now, even when there are vids and pictures, who kissed who.  And he doesn’t care.  Because as sloppy and shaky and frankly funny as that kiss was, it’s one that he holds among the most precious.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mass Effect trilogy epilogue. Based on Destroy ending, Shepard survives. Written from Kaidan's perspective, it details life after the war, largely covering his relationship with Shepard but also including select events as the galaxy rebuilds and moves on.

**Four months.**

To set a date and find a location.  It took a while, the logistics.  The galaxy was recovering.  Getting everyone in town at once was hard.  Hours and hours of endless calls and extensive future planning and cross-checking and rescheduling and checking again. 

**Two hours.**

To decide on the picturesque, forested estate.  Which Shepard and Garrus had inspected for security vulnerabilities in what had immediately, predictably, devolved into war games pitting Team Vakarian against Team Shepard, with Team “Snooty-pants” (that being himself, Miranda, and Shepard's mother) sighing on the sidelines in exasperation.

Team Shepard won.  Kaidan may or may not have sold out Jack's hiding place to Lis.

**One week.**

To celebrate the anniversary of Victor Mortis. 

Liara made the comment one evening that this must be what the original Greek Olympics were like: the entirety of the known world cancelling all conflicts for one long party.  He thought that quite apt.

The galaxy at last cut loose and Kaidan could have sworn he heard the whole of the galactic population give a collective sigh of relief when they'd survived an Earth year with no Reapers.   _Everyone_ celebrated for days

Festivals to concerts to cookouts to charity balls and marathons to impromptu parties in the street and the intimate gathering of friends and family.  Each species and culture having its own way to celebrate the survival.  A party that consumed the whole of London was the crowning glory, the final uniting celebration taking place at the base of the still-active beam.  That quickly became an annual tradition and  _the_ party to attend or watch on TV.

**One long evening somewhere in the middle of that week.**

Spent watching the fireworks from the balcony of their apartment in London, Lisa wrapped under his arm, head rolled back onto his shoulder.  She had rocked them gently back and forth in the swing.  Such an absent, persistent behavior for her, the woman who literally didn’t know how to sit still.  He’d gotten so used to having constant movement with her around that he had picked up a fear of stillness.  That little annoyance was more than worth bearing.

That night and so many others, he’d been mesmerized watching the colors thrown off by the fireworks roll over her face and wondered how they’d gotten so lucky to come through Hell and still be alive and together.

“Sometimes there aren’t answers we’re happy with,” she’d told him one night when he’d asked her that.  He could tell, just a touch too late, that her fears that the world around them wasn’t quite so real were working fiercely at her.  Maybe it was her fear of indoctrination, or some residual effects of actual indoctrination.  She was right.  There were no explanations for that nagging fear of hers that made him happy.

“Do you need an answer for it, then?” he’d asked her in response, chasing away his own doubts, hand on her shoulder, praying she’d look up and meet him with clear eyes.  When she didn’t look at him, he’d known she needed an answer and he chastised himself for not realizing that sooner.  She was too logical to not need one. 

She’d folded her arms, closed her eyes, and gathered herself, drawing long, deep breaths.  When she opened her eyes, she’d rolled her shoulders back and met his eyes.  They’d been so bright and full of her familiar determination.  His chest had swelled in reaction to them.

“We’re here because we refused to let it be otherwise,” she declared for the first time and far from the last.  Garrus had it engraved on their wedding bands as a joke.  But it’s still there on the band, practically emblazoned onto Kaidan’s soul now.

**Eight hours.**

To host a gathering of friends and family at their place in Michigan.  Everyone came.

Wrex and Grunt turned the farm into a giant game of hide and seek with more juvenile Krogan than Kaidan cared to count running roughshod through the cornfields and woods for hours.  Their screams and squeals of delight quickly becoming pleasant background music for the rest of them. 

Lisa counted the deer that the children startled, bounding away over fences and into the bordering woods with their white tails on prominent display in their retreat.  At least eleven, she’d informed him when the children were finally brought in and put to bed.

A bonfire had capped the night.  The first one since Rannoch but the atmosphere strikingly similar.  Joy and sorrow in each face, but now there was a contentedness.  A palpable sense of relief and the knowledge that everything was going to be all right now.

**One Year**

Spent working.  Largely as Ambassadors but they were hardly surprised when their combat skills were needed.

They weeded out and eliminated Cerberus and indoctrinated holdouts.  Each mission an exercise in managing their frustration.  And their fears: it never ended.

They spread supplies and repair teams to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, slowly but surely rebuilding what once was and creating new diplomatic relationships, trading posts, and installing new Galactic Alliance military stations so that they could better protect the systems which were once extensively preyed upon by pirates and smugglers.

**That same year.**

To help blend the Rachni into galactic society. 

To make major strides in the recovery of EDI, the Geth, and AI's all across the galaxy.  Getting VI's back online had been a huge step and that it was Lisa Shepard’s copy of the Shepard VI that had been one of the first to be fully recovered was an irony lost on few.

For the introduction of the Galactic Allied News Network.  GANN was launched by Khalisah al-Jilani and a small team of news executives from Surkesh, Palaven, and Dekuuna.  While the network got off to a rough start, support from big names such as Aria T’loak, Urdnot Wrex, and Lisa Shepard in the form of exclusive interviews drew viewers in record number.  Today, the network is thriving with reporters embedded in even the farthest reaches of the galaxy and is considered to be one of the bastions of modern journalism.

**That same year.**

To begin the recovery of lost homeworlds in earnest. 

The Hegemony accepted the galaxy’s offered help and happy refugees returned to the planet en masse, laying the groundwork for what would become one of the biggest centers of commerce in the new society that the galaxy was building.

On Palaven, Cipritine began the transformation into a city of monuments.  To the dead.  To the heroes, to the Krogan, and of course to the crew of the  _Normandy_ . 

**An indeterminate amount of painful hours.**

To accompany Garrus and his family in digging through the wreckage of their centuries-old Cipritine estate.  The Reapers had claimed to preserve each race’s history.  The indiscriminant destruction of that history said otherwise.

No matter how many ruined sites they saw, it never got easier.  They were never dulled to it and as Garrus had said one particularly dark evening in the early days on Earth, that was a good thing.

**Two months.**

To continue to plan, to rearrange their work schedules to ensure that the next five weeks were all theirs.  The  _Normandy_ would receive much needed maintenance, retrofits, and upgrades.  Best of all, Tali and Traynor could finally get EDI online.

**One week.**

One anticipatory, stressful, excited week.  Last minute details.  Not having actual work to do and no idea what to do with themselves with a slate that was truly empty for the first time since they defeated Saren.

**The third night of that week.**

To change the centerpieces.  Elcor were allergic to lilies.  They'd chosen lilies because every other species, Quarians included, could handle lilies.  Shepard had been more than a little tipsy when this niggling issue had popped up and being the giggly drunk she was, laughed to herself about it for  _hours_ that night. 

Thus was their “ _Lilies_ ” joke was born.

**Several largely uncounted hours.**

To run the rehearsal dinner.  The tedium hardly dulled their excitement.  The afterglow of the wonderful dinner with friends and family carried them late into the night.  No one got to bed before midnight.

He’d kissed Lisa goodnight before she’d left with the girls and he saw the realization dawn in her eyes at the same moment it dawned on him.  This was real.  They were getting married the next day.

She’d  _curtsied_ .  He didn’t know she could do that.  Then she winked at him and let Miranda and Liara drag her away.

**Eight hours.**

To try to sleep, alone and too excited.  It was hardly the first time since the return to Earth that they hadn't shared a bed.  But it was the strangest.

He wasn't worried about the threats she still faced.  He wasn't worried that while he lay in bed, sleeping, she was out there putting her life on the line and that that day might be the one when a bullet finally found her heart.  He didn't fear the 3 a.m. call that would tell him the  _Normandy_ was destroyed by the one Reaper that the Crucible somehow missed.

He laughed to himself.   _She's fine and_ now  _you can't sleep?_

**Kaidan knows that the measurement is a day.  Twenty-four hours.**

_He knows that it could be fragmented, put so easily into shorter pieces, but he's never done that.  Their wedding day has always been one long, flowing late spring day.  It felt like weeks and he remembers it like that.  He is grateful for it._

A day to have a fantasy come true.  Which feels dishonest because the entirety of his life, even with all the heartbreak, is a fantasy that he wakes to every day. As with his life, he knows there were nitty-gritty details behind the magic of a day that came together perfectly.

The things like their decision to go by the Almanac and a litany of predictive weather analytics to ensure the perfect sunny, not-too-cold, not-too-warm day.  Low pollen levels, low insect levels, the perfect density of blooming flowers on the estate's grounds and in the surrounding woods.  He could go on and on.  But he doesn’t.  Because that’s boring and steals some of the sheen, even if they owe that sheen to their own meticulous efforts.

So Kaidan remembers waking on a glorious morning, the sun beaming in his east-facing window and birds singing in the dense green woods.  He thought it sounded like a rainforest.   When he'd risen he'd been greeted by the smiling faces of his family and closest friends.  Faces which did nothing but smile and shed tears of joy throughout the day.

There was a brunch with his groomsmen.  After which they tried to impress the notion of golf on Garrus but he wasn’t having it and Kaidan was fine with that.  He was wound too tightly to play a sport with so much idling, anyway.

A lunch followed.  Lisa’d made sure it was a steak salad with all the right ingredients on it.  Perfect.  But he hardly ate any of it.

At last he’d returned to his room to dress.  He knew how to wear a tux.  He was hardly a novice at that point but still he was tight and nervous and made far too many mistakes as he dressed.  His lucky underwear.  Old and a touch blood-stained but she’d approve, and had been wearing her own that day, too.  Undershirt.  Tuxedo shirt.  The buttons felt like they took ages to put together.

“You fought  _Reapers_ , Captain Alenko.   _Get.  Over.  It._ ”

Belt.  Vest of ivory paisley.  More buttons.  Jacket.  When he’d failed to get his cuff links on he’d finally given in and found his mother.  She’d gasped, cupped her hand to her mouth, and began crying the moment she’d seen him and so of course, his tears began in earnest.  She hugged him, told him for the thousandth time how handsome he was and how lucky his bride was.  For once, he hadn’t argued with her.

She fluffed his hair, secured his cufflinks, his purple bowtie, and the boutonnière of a single violet calla lily. 

After that, he was turned over to his groomsmen and made to wait until the ceremony.  The time was only half an hour, he knew, but it had felt like ages.  As had walking down the aisle and then waiting at the altar for the love of his life while some incredibly traditional hymn that Liara had dug up was played by a string quartet.  His military training, hours spent standing at parade rest in all manner of conditions, was the only thing that kept him stable through that wait.

He remembered the wedding party coming down the aisle in one long blur, started by pair of Quarian twins which Miranda had “inadvertently” adopted acting as ring bearer and flower girl.  Finally Liara and Garrus parted and took their respective positions, leaving only one person left to come.

The doors to the carriage house were pulled open, revealing her in one single moment.  His first thought in that moment was how he didn’t believe he’d ever seen her with her hair braided before. 

_Her hair’s braided and there are diamonds in her hair_ .  That was his first thought when he laid his eyes on this stunningly beautiful creature who had chosen to share her life with him.  The childish giggle at that notion had kept him from crying for all of .03 seconds.  That she had started crying only a few steps into the walk down that long aisle strangely comforted him. 

He couldn't believe this woman in her ivory gown with fall-colored flowers in her hands was the same woman he'd fought alongside as recently as two weeks ago. The same woman who’d gotten a scar on her brow from head-butting her Turian best friend, had  _died_ and been rebuilt, had led a team to the galaxy core and back with no casualties, and had run to the beam to save them all with her fears buried deep beneath her strongest face. 

Who wore armor and wielded a heavy sniper rifle as easily as she made people fall in love with her.  Who could command the might of the galaxy in one moment and would be found playing doomed-to-fail practical jokes on her closest friends in the next. 

Who at the end of every day would don her ratty pajamas, wrap her arms around him, and manage to convince him that this wasn’t a fantasy, that it wasn’t brought to him by luck but instead that it was his life and he’d earned every last bit of it.

_This is my life.  She’s real.  This is real.  I love her.  And she loves me._

When she’d reached the altar, it had taken everything in him to not touch her aside from a chaste kiss on her knuckle as he’d bowed to her.  But he hadn’t had to wait long.  The ceremony was kept short on purpose. 

After choking their way through their handwritten vows, words they’d said to each other hundreds of times already which still somehow had the power to bring them to their knees, they exchanged rings, said their I-do’s.  The moment he was given permission he finally let his control go as he kissed her deeply, passionately, and spun her around in the air after it, her delighted laughter raining down on him.

He remembered laughing their way down the aisle, knowing they were surrounded by smiling faces but only caring about the woman whose hand was held tightly in his and whose bright eyes kept stoking the already roaring firing inside of him each time they flashed back to him.

He remembered the carriage ride back to the gardens for the reception and how he finally had a chance to  _look_ at her dress and stamp it into his memories likely as well as she had.  They were wordless on the ride.  He watched her watch everything with a blissful smile on her face.  The same expression she would hold for the rest of the evening.

Through toasts and speeches and silly gifts and gags.  Through the waltz they’d danced, the dance with her father, and all of silly traditional wedding dances that their friends had dug up and queued up for them.  Until she started to tire and he guided her to one of the couches which lined the reception area. 

They sat together, kissed, whispered I-love-yous and within moments were both asleep, their hands clasped, her head resting on his shoulder and his leaning on hers.  For all of the amazing photos that came from their wedding, it is agreed by all (dissent and face Admiral Shepard’s wrath), that the best two are one which Tali captured of them just sleeping together on that couch and a second of their friends and family gathered about the sofa, managing to be quiet enough not to wake them while they slept.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter opens with a major tonal shift. There's a lot of angst related to anxiety/paranoia, largely on Shepard's part. Picks up with the honeymoon, where the last chapter left off.

**Four weeks.**

The amount of time they'd set aside for a true honeymoon.  Really, the first time they'd ever taken completely for themselves to enjoy life.  It came as quite a revelation, to the both of them, that they'd never even taken a day for just their personal enjoyment before then.

**The first five days.**

Spent in total isolation in the jungles of Surkesh for them to get the itch to be out and seeing the galaxy again.    After they'd fought for so long to be able to have a life where camping safely out in the wilderness was even possible, being alone with no other sentient life around them had been incredibly disconcerting.  It got under their skin.  Made them anxious.  Fearful.  Caused Lisa's fear that she hadn't actually survived the war to crop up and rear its ugly head on the fourth night they were alone. 

**One long night.**

Spent holding her tightly to him, rocking her back and forth, and reassuring her that this was real.  That there was nothing to wake from because it  _wasn't_ a dream.  That she wasn't in a Collector stasis pod dreaming of the perfect life while her unwillingness to fight the dream, to rise up against that enemy, cost the galaxy everything.

**Endless hours.**

Spent clutching her to him while she’d clawed at his arms, his face, his chest, his legs, fearful he wasn't real.  Remaining as calm and pliant as possible while she’d undressed him and scoured every inch for any sign that he might not be material or that he might not be human. 

Then spent watching with tears hot in his eyes as she’d done the same to herself, meticulous in her efforts.   She’d plucked at her hair, tried to wiggle her teeth, used a mirror to closely inspect her eyes, her underarms, her groin, and every inch of her that she couldn’t see directly with her eyes.  She’d pushed and pulled her skin over her bones to see if she could spot irregularities, any wrongness.

And when that had failed to satisfy her, she’d reached for one of the hunting knives and tried to dig into her skin, to assure herself that she bled human blood, all the while muttering that if she couldn’t  _see_ beneath her skin she couldn’t be certain it was just muscle, just bone.  Just organic matter.

He’d been forced to restrain her with his biotics before she’d been able to cut into herself.  

**Hours upon hours.**

Spent praying that she could come back to herself, back to him.  Because when he'd looked into her eyes, tried desperately to make her see him, he'd realized that for the first time, she truly believed these things she feared.  This time, unlike all the previous rough moments, she couldn’t convince herself that it was all her powerful imagination. 

**Hours.**

Spent wondering, not for the first time, if this was how indoctrination could manifest in her.  That it was something more insidious, something darker and crueler than they'd experienced in the past.  Something meant to break her instead of merely bending her to the Reapers' will.

**Hours** .

Spent loving her and fearing her and fearing for her and being completely unable to do anything but sit with his jaw clenched while she fought viciously against the hold of his biotics.  Her worried utterances turning cruel epithets, then twisting to scared pleas when she didn’t “wake up” despite her best efforts.  Those pleas breaking down into terrified, inhuman sounds as her panic overwhelmed her until exhaustion had finally claimed her and dragged her down into a heavy sleep.

**The remaining hours o** f  **the night.**

Spent diligently keeping watch should she wake and still need to be restrained.  Trying to wash away all she’d said.  Trying to tell himself that he hadn’t ignored the little signs from the previous days which would have told him that she was pulling herself apart at a rapid pace.  Berating himself for trusting her to know her own limits when he shouldn’t have.

**A few minutes.**

For her to wake.  Eyes fluttering open, clear and focused, but darkened by shame and hurt.  Indicating to him that she’d remembered the previous night in its entirety.  He’d said nothing as they fell on him.

_“Kaidan.  This is real.  I’m… God.  I’m so sorry.”_

_“No.  I am.  I failed you.”_

**Two and some hours.**

As they sat together that morning, making lists with pen and paper of all the things they could remember having gone through their minds on the preceding dark night.  Of streaming tears and shaking breaths as they tried to articulate their fears and broke each others' hearts over and over again.  Relentless in their need to understand.  To help and support each other through whatever circles of Hell they might find themselves forced to traverse.  To ensure that they would never have to face it alone and unprepared.

To recognize that neither of them could do this alone.  To admit that sometimes, even their combined strength, wasn't enough.  That they needed outside help.

They'd said their vows several days prior.  Vows they'd written for themselves, had thought long and hard on, which had seemed to mean everything at the time but that paled in comparison to the promises they'd made each other that morning.

So much of it had been said before.  So much of it had been promised before.  But never had they felt so weak, so vulnerable.  Never had the words and the looks and the embraces meant so much. 

That was their true wedding ceremony.  That morning is why there's a seemingly useless rock on the mantle over the fireplace with a seemingly random date engraved on it that neither one of them is particularly inclined to provide a clear story about. 

The most popular lie is that it came from Rannoch.  Their friends and family know that's not the case but they have never pressed the issue.  Instead they began to bring by rocks from their homeworlds.  Some have dates, others names, engraved upon their undersides.  All have an unspoken significance.  Tali’s rock has Legion. Wrex, the date his father tried to kill him.  Jacob, the date he left the Alliance.  Cortez, Robert.

They'd hoped that their friends did not face the same difficulties but in their hearts they'd known.  It was a burden they all shared, all understood.  Even now.  It was one which could never be ignored but whose weight could be lessened by the understanding nods, the ever polite reminders to eat, to sleep, that it was all over and they were truly safe without ever explicitly saying it. 

**One hour.**

Of quiet recovery time.  To relent after only a few days spent hiking and camping and return to the distracting commotion of civilization.  To contact Dr. Chakwas and have her assign one of the best therapists she knew to the  _Normandy._

**The remaining three weeks.**

To roam the galaxy as they pleased under the guise of numerous shakedown runs and testing assignments for the  _Normandy’s_ newest upgrades.  No questions were asked of them when they’d shown up to the Alliance’s London spaceport three weeks early. 

So they settled back in, plotted a course, and began take two of their honeymoon. 

**Those same three weeks.**

For the laughter and joy to slowly creep back into their lives.  The visit to Rannoch and an exuberant Tali who was far more beneficial for healing than they would have imagined. They’d laughed and smiled within the first few moments and when Lisa’d looked at him over the Quarian’s shoulder from the tight embrace they’d shared, he’d known that she was going to be alright.  Hope and relief shone clear in her eyes.

**Those same three weeks.**

For Tali and her outstanding team to detail their progress on the Geth.  To show them the Quarians' progress in building up a society on Rannoch, plans to accommodate the Geth already well underway.  When the race had been recovered, they’d have a place.

There was another trip to Palaven, the first one when the sun finally came out.  Liara secured a trip for them to the mountains north of Cipritine, the ones she'd often reminisced about.  Though it was odd to be wearing enviro-suits on their honeymoon, the sights were worth the inconvenience, the suits oddly grounding.

And then several days on Thessia, exploring the sights and sounds of the recovery, but never quite feeling like they belonged.  And another few on Tuchanka in what turned out to be a rather romantic suite in one of the freshly restored ruins near the Shroud.

**One hour.**

For Wrex and Lisa to reminisce and enjoy a tour of the grounds on which Kalos and a Reaper had fought.  He hadn't so much enjoyed the stories as she pointed out the imprints of Reaper feet on the rubble and bullet holes on the stone pillars where she'd missed a brute that had nearly killed Vega.  Realizing just how close she’d been to death, hell, how close they’d all been, was not something he’d grappled well with that day.  That night it had been her turn to help him, earnestly accepting his guilt for the first time and answering with a litany of the times he hadn’t failed her.

**Forty minutes.**

Standing at the monument erected before the Shroud in Mordin's honor, with her head on his shoulder, fingers twined through his and squeezing tightly as silent tears streamed down her face.  Mordin was one of the few she couldn't save, who she'd never forgive herself for losing, no matter what that single “failure” had accomplished.

“This is one of the ways I know this is real,” she’d told him then, her voice full of that familiar mixture of heartbreak and hope.

**One week.**

For Tali and her veritable army of technicians to work through the final stages of getting EDI back online. 

It was true, that old saying.  That memories make people who they are.  Because EDI was still EDI.  Mostly.  The changes in her personality were subtle, but they were there.  Impossible to ignore.  Just as Lisa Shepard’s had been after having been dead for two years herself.

She would later spend endless hours with EDI, the two quickly bonding (rebonding?) over EDI's lost time.  After all, no one else could quite understand what coming back from the dead was like. 

He would never know what they discussed, and he would never ask.   But he knew that every time they were done, she came away smiling despite reddened eyes.  He must have looked particularly concerned one night because she'd sat him down and made it clear that the only wound from that episode of her life which still needed attention was one which he was already helping her to address.

**Four hours.**

To host a small party on the  _Normandy_ with many of their friends and former crew.   To reminisce and laugh and dance.  To clutch at a gut gone sore from laughter as Tali and Jack dragged his wife up onto the bar counter where they danced for no fewer than forty-five minutes until Grunt’s drunken attempt to join them resulted in a collapsed bar and the three women rolling in a giggling pile on top of the Krogan.

**What he is sure is a surprisingly short stretch of time.**

To heft a laughing Lisa over his shoulder and carry her back to their cabin, all while she loudly told the worst, crudest jokes she knew, seeming to think that they were  _excellent_ dirty talk.  To help her change into sleepwear, only to opt for the birthday suit, appeasing the woman who was too tired to initiate sex no matter how adamantly she proclaimed her desires.  To help her into bed and chuckle when she muttered a half-assed apology for being too tired for “smexy times” with her “smexy husband”.

To feel his heart swell with a familiar warmth that had been missing too much of late as she curled into him, kissing him gently.

“We’re here because we refuse to let it be otherwise.  This is our reality.   _We earned this._   We’re going to be fine,” she’d whispered against the bare skin of his chest.  Her tone had been surprisingly clear.  He believed her then and through all the years since, she has yet to give him a reason to doubt.


End file.
